


Consequences

by NicoleMAbrahamson_AResidentGhost



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: Abusive Parents, Abusive Siblings, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Christine & Raoul's descendants, Christine and Raoul live happily ever after, Curses, Erik gets a second chance at life, F/M, Kidnapping, Physical Transformation, Reincarnation, forced reincarnation, transformations, ugly as hell now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-15 05:07:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5772418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NicoleMAbrahamson_AResidentGhost/pseuds/NicoleMAbrahamson_AResidentGhost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens if the reason Erik looks the way he does was because of a long standing curse?  And what if that curse was passed on to his first love's children?  Would there be a way to stop it?  What would happen if the curse ever came to manifest again--say in modern life?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

            The house on the lake was in tatters, so destroyed was it that it barely resembled her fading memories. She could barely stifle the melancholy sob that threatened to escape her throat. _All the beauty, knowledge and accumulated relics—they were all destroyed in a rage born from the blackest despair, most likely because he thought I would never keep my promise and_ _return_ , Christine thinks to herself. A tear forms in her right eye, overflowing the delicate lower lid and trickling down her cheek.

            The man whom Erik would refer to as Daroga or a “great booby”, the same man everyone else simply referred to as _le Perse_ , took notice of her presence. He looks up at her from a lone surviving stuffed chair, and says, “Mademoiselle Daaé?” Christine nods without saying a word. He then gets up and motions for her to follow him. He leads her to the Louis-Philippe room, where once she stayed, the memory still vivid in her mind, although even then it was already fading.

            “He is dying, mademoiselle,” the Persian speaks. “As I suppose you probably already know.” She knows this deep in her heart, and has since she saw the ad in the _Époque_. “He would like to see you alone, one last time before he is totally gone. He has something to say or give to you that he refuses to tell to me about.”

 

            She walks in the room that once was filled with fresh flowers for her as he plunges again into yet another terrible coughing fit. She runs to his side, weeping openly tears that she had long ago denied could ever happen again. He has his mask off, she notices as he turns his terrible head towards the sound of her quiet crying, dark, lifeless eyes wet with unshed tears. Unlike the times before that she had seen him, she does not flinch. The corners of his twisted mouth turn in a tiny, pained smile.

            “Do not…do not cry, … _ma cherie_ ,” he whispers pleadingly. Gone is the rich and sensual voice that could overpower a hundred men or calm the most troubled heart. “It will be…over…soon, …I believe. No more…will you need…to think…of me again, _ma petite_ … Remember…that from now on, your…family…” He coughs again and she dutifully rubs his bony chest to massage the ache away. “Your family…will always have…a guardian angel…watching over them.”

            “I brought you the ring you had me keep, Erik,” Christine sobs.

            “You may do as I instructed…when I am dead… But,” he sighs. “I will give you another ring, a _special_ ring, imbued with a strange magic and a…link…to my eternal soul… A token—if you will—of my…everlasting…love for you…and a sign that I am… watching…over your…family.” He is quiet and so still that she thinks he has finally passed on, but he grabs her arm in his deathly cold hands and says, “However, if you or your descendents should ever break your promise by losing, selling, or _damaging_ the ring, I cannot be…responsible…for what will happen. A curse placed long ago…will be…fulfilled.”

            And with that, his grip relaxes and the little fire remaining in his eyes went out. He was dead, after all this time, and all the pain and hardships he had to live through. Acting upon his final wishes, she completes them silently, with the help of the Persian for some of the more laborious tasks set out, weeping the whole time as only those touched by a greater, darker love of the most terrible kind cry when they lose the one that had touched them.

 

            Christine and Raoul were married and traveled to the great northlands, producing from their love, many strong children. The strongest of the bloodlines could be traced down the generations to two families: one in America, in hiding from their own relatives and the French police for a grievous crime done out of spite and bitterness, and the other, still in France, holders to the titles, lands, and fortunes, still grieving the loss of their first-born son, the culmination of the line with the strongest of the de Chagny blood running through his veins.


	2. Chapter 2

            Jackie Deshawny was the last of the American branch of the direct bloodline from Christine Daaé’s marriage to Raoul, _le Comte de Chagny_. In the early 1920’s, her ancestors had come to America and changed their name to try to break away from the scandals surrounding and attached to the young couple’s marriage and consequently, the proud de Chagny name. However, the pure bloodlines from Christine and Raoul’s marriage are not as narrow as one might think. The second, purer branch never left for America. They had been living in England, however, and did eventually come back to France and retake their rightful properties from the diluted blood of the relatives. But we are only concerned with Jackie Deshawny and her “adopted” son, Radian Deshawny, _nee_ de Chagny. Yes, he was born to the de Chagny title and fortune, but through some shady dealings, involving kidnapping and murder, he ended up in the wicked mother’s household.

            Anyways, Jackie was planning a garage sale, and Radian was having a tremendous argument with his so-called “mother” about a certain ring he has had in his possession for as long as he could remember. The point of the argument was that Jackie wanted him to sell the ring, calling it a “worthless piece of junk jewelry”, a “piece of costume jewelry and only that”, and that it was her right to decide what to do with it. _And,_ she thought to herself, _if I cannot have it or sell it, I should wreck it! Then he will no doubt agree to sell it! Ha!_

            He knew she was wrong, as always, that she only wanted the money so she could spend it on things for _her_ children, and that it was a link to his real past and his personal guardian angel who has helped him through many a night and crisis.

 

            Slamming the door to his attic room, he collapses on his hard bed and weeps. Stifling back a sob, he removes his secret box that only opens for him and takes out the confiscated letters from his true mother and father. _Soon, momma, soon… Soon I’ll be coming home, mama et papa, hopefully within the week. I hope I can escape without this bitch noticing, for if she does, she’ll certainly prevent me. I already have the tickets, thanks to you, papa,_ he thinks to himself and smiles.

 

            She will be gone for a week, for her “work”, he was told at the end of last week, after the argument when he awoke and she was nowhere around. _And timed perfectly. Thank you, mon_ _Ange_ , _Erik,_ he whispers to his ever-faithful guardian angel. He has already packed his meager belongings and sent them ahead to his _real_ home, which he hasn’t seen since Radian was four years old. _They will be waiting for me at the Charles De Gaulle Airport for me. Goodbye, torturers; and may I have the good luck to never see you again._ The angry thoughts come unbidden, well, not really unbidden, to his mind as he entered the taxi which would take him to the airport.

            He has made sure that he has the ring as he leaves for France. But it doesn’t _feel_ right; it feels as if it was wrong somehow. Sure it fit, and looked correct down to the last detail. But wait, what is that? On closer inspection, there _was_ something missing. Very tiny, and almost imperceptible, a gash was slashed through one of the tiny figures encircling the ring! Not good, is it. No, not good at all. Another thing was _different_ about the precious and ancient band. It smelled, in fact, when it had never smelled before. Oh sure, occasionally, when times went wrong and he sought guidance, he would catch the smell of roses, incense, and old death; but this is different now. The smell, which caught his attention, now is that of burnt ashes, cemetery dust, and blood that was not freshly spilled. And something else… A very slight smell, but there nonetheless… A hint of vinegar and abrasive cleansers… She had cleaned it to try and hide her crime! _She_ must have done this, a crime that was long forbidden by familial (and supposedly superstitious) traditions! If this is the truth, that would be the cause of the smell. The ancient connection is broken! What will he do now without his familiar guide and guardian angel?

 

            It started during the flight over the Atlantic Ocean. The consequences would be terrible and the price high for Radian, who had never accepted his kidnappers’ renaming him as Steven. It was slight at first, just a mildly annoying tingling sensation in his limbs and body, particularly in his hands and fingers. He felt that it was just because of the cramped space aboard the plane and the pain of not having moved from the same position for so long. It soon grew almost overwhelmingly painful. He had steadily been losing weight over the past two weeks for no reason he could think of, and now he wondered if this sensation was caused by the same “sickness” that was causing his weight loss.

            For some strange reason, he noticed with acute and painful clarity, his hands were growing! Lengthening, thinning, and becoming quite bony, they, however, felt comfortable, completely and totally natural—as if that is how they were meant to be. And he himself was growing, bone structure changing, shifting, becoming somehow stronger yet at the same time, thinner, more delicate-seeming. And then, all these changes seemed to stop. Visibly, that is. The Change, as he would come to call it, was not over. Though thin and gaunt, and having a much smaller and flatter nose, he could still pass off as being a human being, which he is. And despite appearances, the changing hadn’t stopped, but merely slowed down incredibly.

            His real parents welcomed him and greeted him with joy. Noticing what had and was happening (for they understood even if he didn’t), they hurried him through customs and back to the ancient de Chagny estate before it was complete and a disaster would be unavoidable.

            By the time they got home, Radian (or as a voice that was steadily overwhelming his mind and identity said, “Erik”) was now well over six feet tall, very near seven feet, missing only by about two or three inches. He was positively skeletal by then, and his eyes were set so far into his head that the newly golden orbs could not be seen, and his nose… Oh, his nose! There is so little of it left that it cannot be seen from the side, and where it once was is now nothing but a black cavity!


	3. Chapter 2

            Memories of a life, from a point of view of a person that he has never known before, swim in his head. This presence that is in his head is threatening to destroy what is left of his life, such as it is now, along with the identity he has grown up with and therefore has known all his relatively short life. Who was—or _is_ —Erik? What the hell is he now? _What kind of creature, what_ thing _, am I now?_ Radian questions silently as these and other, stranger thoughts run through the young man’s head.

            He studies his countenance in the small, gilt-framed hand mirror. Tears well up in his shadowed eyes, pooling in the deep sockets, and roll down his hollow cheeks. He watches his tears fall as he strokes the cold, unfeeling glass in which his vaguely terrifying, corpse-like visage is contained. The cold surface refuses to yield to his persistent and somewhat pleading caresses. He senses another presence in the room in which he hid when he entered into his real, ancestral home. Still a child in the eyes of most countries’ laws, as he was still only sixteen—even in his changed body, the new body was not old, but incredibly young, the same age as his _original_ body.

            He doesn’t even look up as he asks, “Why? Why me? Why this? What did I do to deserve this?”

            His father sits down on the bed next to Radian and places an arm around his son. For despite the extreme change in looks, and minute, odd changes to his personality, Lucien de Chagny still loves his son. To him, it doesn’t matter what is on the outside, it is the inside, the character, the soul, which makes up a man (or woman), not the physical self. But still his father had not seen quite clearly the full extant of the distortion and changes wrought upon his body by the long-displaced curse. Radian, knowing full well what he looks like, turns away so as not to repulse his father. Lucien, sensing this strange distrust in his son, gently turns his son’s face around so that he could look Radian fully in his eyes.

            “We tried for generations upon generations to stave this off, this…this curse, although we were not really sure what the curse fully entailed. We could only guess, and so it eventually passed into the realm of familial mythology and superstition, just another tale to keep the younger generation both amused and obedient. In its own way, the curse became an effective boogeyman, sparking fear of unknown punishments for bad behavior that was not wanted. In this way, it was told to you in particular, but also your siblings when they were younger. Few believe or believed in the curse, although it is always at the back of our minds. That is how we recognized, albeit almost too late, what was happening as you came home.

            “The legend, according to how I was told, started with a simple promise, made many, many years ago, between your ancestors Raoul and Christine de Chagny and a rather shadowy figure. Supposedly, this man had loved Christine as he had never loved before, and for some reason, it was destined to be his only love. It was never explained why she was his only love, only that the mademoiselle was his first and last. When he was dying, nay, almost dead, he had made her swear a promise to never be forgotten and gave her the ring, whispering of a curse placed on him long ago, when he was still a child as a result of circumstances he could not control. It had something to do with a traveling carnival sideshow, the Gypsies, and being forced to perform or some such nonsense of that sort. Anyway, he stressed quite strongly the importance of that ring you and generations of the first-born de Chagny line have worn before you, and the respect that must be given. Do you remember the rules that the legend claimed, Radian?”

            “Yes,” he sighs. “Never sell it. Never destroy or damage it. Never bath it in chemicals or abrasive polishes. Never lose it. Always wear it. Yes, I remember.”

            “So, for some reason or another, am I correct, that the warnings were not lies, but the truth?”

            Radian speaks, “Yes. But…why me? Why now?”

            His father produces a book. “This may help to answer some of your questions, although I do not know. Handle it carefully, as it is very old, and probably brittle, too,” his father sighs. Lucien reaches over and kisses Radian’s head, stands up, and leaves with tears in his eyes.

 

            He opens the dusty, black leather-bound tome. A smell of dust, age, and incense assaults his surprisingly sensitive (even though it is basically nonexistent) nose.

            _“To whoever reads this,”_ Radian reads, _“I am sorry for what has happened, if anything.”_

            “Did the author of this handwritten book _know_ what would—no, what _has_ —happened to me?” he mumbles, not aware that he is speaking his thoughts _aloud_. He continues reading the childish red script.

            _“I would not wish this so-called ‘curse’ that has plagued me all my life, this farce of a living being, upon another, ever. I am neither normally superstitious nor religious, though when I was a young boy, before an event, which out of fear from painful memories of neglect, abuse, and seclusion that I suffered, I had religion drilled into me and crammed down my throat at every chance. Not that my family was a bunch of religious fanatics, it is just that they all believed me to either be the child of a demon, a changeling, or the result of some grievous sin they had committed in the past. These forced beliefs and penance for sins I had no knowledge of, other than perhaps just being born, pushed me away from the religious beliefs that I was taught and surrounded with. I had run away at an early age, thinking that the world outside couldn’t possibly be any worse than in my family’s ‘home’. I soon caught up with a band of gypsies. They were wary of me and my mask at first, assuming that I was either a thief that would slit their throats in the night or a demon born of darkness come to steal them away._

_“Then, what I knew would be inevitable, someone spotted me when I was bathing in a nearby stream. I, of course, thought I was alone at the time, and therefore I had removed my mask to wash and clean my face—an important task in itself that was one thing my mother taught me right—which, unfortunately, due to the situation in which I found myself, was delayed for several weeks—actually, to tell the truth, it had been since I first joined their little band. My face, of course, was not something any sane person could keep to oneself—much less forget—for a very long time._

_“This lead to me being caged and forced to perform against my will at the beginning, night after night, until I escaped. I knew a surprising amount about gypsy magic, which is why I am writing this account. When I left, the band that I had been traveling with for the past four years was, of course, terribly angry with my leaving. As I rode away, I plainly heard them curse me with a potent curse. The curse was such: ‘When you find love, the firstborn of the next generation—male or female—will be cursed to the same fate to which you were born. And from that generation on, the line will suffer the same fate.’ Thus I crafted the ring, which you and your ancestors have most assuredly worn, am I correct? I crafted the simple band out of virgin gold—gold that had never been minted nor used before—and imbued them with ancient counter-magic I have learned from the Far East. And if this is being read in the future, I shall rest in peace knowing that my efforts did not go to waste. I just hope that the world will be more accepting of those that are different at the time this is read than that in which this story is being written.”_

            Radian closes the cover of the leather-bound volume. He is unwittingly crying, over his particular fate, and what he knows now will be his children’s also, _if_ he ever finds love with this new body of his. He wishes he knew more of this poor creature, which he knows, in the end, was just a man. A man that through no fault of his own had been cast out for much of his life, just as assuredly as he would be, too.

 


	4. Chapter 3

The two weeks following Radian’s return home pass too quickly for his taste. His father had hired a private tutor, one who would not be repulsed by his son’s visage, to help him catch up with his education and also help him renew the fluency in the native language that he once had. Although he could easily read and write in French still when he came home, he was having a hard time communicating verbally in this tongue. Why, you might ask? Because for all those years that he was separated from his family by the kidnapping, he was never allowed to speak in anything but English. He did, however, manage to keep his knowledge of the language in the written word. This had to be kept secret, as he was forbidden any chance to speak his first language or have contact with it in any media. Despite these almost violent restrictive practices, he still managed to smuggle in items of French origin including works of literature written in his native tongue every chance he had at his disposal. So, in his own way, Radian was quite well off upon his return, more so than one might think knowing his history.

Approximately around the second week of staying in his immense private rooms, he starts to venture out, having overcome the horror of his new countenance. It is nearing his true birthday, of which he was told the truth—that what he had been told was his birthday since he was five was wrong—by his father, Lucien. And all this time he thought he was already sixteen! Although, the false birthday was only off by a little less than a month he learned.

It is the evening of June 13, a Friday, which Radian finds quite ironic, that he will _really_ meet his siblings for the first time. He has already told his father that he will be joining them for dinner this night. Radian is finally sure of himself and has steeled himself for the almost assured rejection he believes, nay, _knows_ , he will face from his siblings. Most of them are certainly uneasy about his presence within the house, even when he was hidden in his room, and who would be stupid enough to not consider the fact that his new face is but a farce compared to what his face once used to be. Even now it makes his stomach turn to look upon his countenance; so he understands other people’s revulsion because when he looks upon himself in a mirror, he himself becomes quite sick. It was like that at first, and though he doesn’t admit it, looking at it still does, although not quite so bad anymore. He has managed to overcome that, at least. What he does not know, however, is that one of his cousins, the one that is staying at the _maison_ for a vacation is a very obsessed fan, although she is not that knowledgeable of the original having read the novel once and being disappointed at the title character not being sexy like Gerard Butler in the new movie (her favorite movie), of “ _Le Fantôme de L’Operá_ ”.

Radian is excited to finally meet the rest of his family, even those who were not alive yet when he was kidnapped, yet he is also quite nervous and uneasy about this new development. He is not sure how the rest of the family, including his mother, will react, although his father and uncle, whose name is Sebastian, have seen him after the _Change_ , his _mother_ , Amellé, and the rest had not, especially since he had holed himself in his bedroom, trying to delay the inevitable.

 _Take things one at a time,_ he tells himself as he tries to at least make himself look presentable. _If I can get through this, maybe I will have a future after all… That is, I hope I will… I hope I will not be sent away… Sent away because of this face that was forced upon me not long ago…_


End file.
